Granny Smith's Apple Pies by Crystal Charee

I started writing this after I completed a Creative Writing class wherein I finished my first short story. I'd written a lot of things, but never a complete actual story. Actually finishing a story jumpstarted my confidence that I could actually write, and this was one of my failed follow-ups. This is overwritten to the point where you can't follow the action, so my re-write will just be to state things plainly. "She sat down in her rocking chair." "The kid who showed up was her grandson." Etcetera.

This kind of writing is frustrating when I read it from other aspiring writers, but until I re-read this, I didn't realize I was THIS guilty of it. The overwriting comes from a lack of confidence that the story will be interesting enough, so I tried to make every sentence an interesting way to describe a normal thing. 

This is the back story of the love interest (Lee) of a play that I wrote in the same Creative Writing class. He grew up as a grifter with his mother, who dropped him off at his grandmother's house one day when he was ten, and didn't show up again until he was eighteen.

Original (2009):

The soft cushions of her rocking chair enfolded her and she set it moving, waiting for the rhythm to catch up to the beat of her heart. The table was ready, blue-and-white checks spread out under neat stacks of pies. Not a hint of last week’s bubblegum or dirt stains visible on the hand-crocheted tablecloth. The hum of the other families setting up their booths was a song against the anticipated bombardment of noise the afternoon would bring.

This was the moment that Granny savored every week. Before the market opened, when everything was clean and quiet. Before the obnoxious customers with their screaming kids and inappropriately personal comments and idiotic questions and -- money -- her gaze ran over the table again. The orderliness of it made a straight line for her gaze to follow until it bumped into a slender shadow leaning against the edge of the table. The kid with eyes older than hers, watching her.

He’d shown up a week ago, waiting on her porch when she’d gotten home from the market. She’d forgotten about him for a few minutes, lost in the ritual of opening. She searched for something to say, an apology or some phrase to persuade him he’d been a constant part of her consciousness. He shook his head slightly, impassive as always.

“You make three dollars per pie, right?”

It was unnerving to see such a calculating look on the face of a young boy. She almost lied but couldn’t figure out what she could say that would take that look away. “Yep.” The chair rocked her, soothing her with its smooth movement.

“Last week you had pies left over.”

“There are usually a few left at the end of the day. I donate them to the church.” His lip curled slightly but so quickly that she questioned whether she’d seen or imagined the disdain. His smile was sudden and charming and the almost definite falseness of it was alarming.

“I’ll make a deal with you,” he said. “If I sell all of your pies, I get to keep whatever the mar-- the customer leaves over the three dollars.”

The idea of customers leaving more than the absolute minimum shook a laugh out of her. “I can cut you in on the profit if you’ll help me…” Compassion made the chair rock faster. She slowed it, deliberately. “Don’t count on any tips.”

The smile curled at the sides of his mouth but his eyes knew more than he was sharing. He cocked his head back, arrogance and magnanimousness in the sweep of his gaze. “Just whatever they pay over the three dollars will do.” He turned, leaving her with the impression that he’d shown his back in order to shield her from his contempt.

She breathed a sigh. So much like his mother…

Through tight and shiny eyes, she looked toward the market entrance. Twenty-or-so early-birds were clustered around the corn and zucchini booths. Some had broken away from the pack and were investigating the Lincoln’s peaches.

Updated (2025):

Granny sank into the soft cushions of her rocking chair. She tuned out the hum of the other families setting up their booths for the farmer's market as she inspected the setup of her own booth. The six-foot long folding table was covered with a hand-knit, blue-and-white gingham table cloth. Lace shawls swagged their way around the table like frosting on a cake. Exactly twenty pies in pristine white bakery boxes were spaced out evenly on the table.

Granny's chair was set up at the northeast corner of the table. It was real wood that creaked when she rocked in it, and its cushions were patterned with red apples on a sky blue background that matched the darkest color blue in the gingham tablecloth. Next to the table, in front of her chair, was a large wicker picnic basket, with a partially finished afghan pouring out of the open flap. A ball of yarn with two knitting needles poking out of it was set on the closed flap of the basket.

Inside the basket was her money box. Under the table was 80 more pies. She hadn't baked any of them, including the twenty on the table. She hadn't knitted the tablecloth or the afghan. She hadn't crocheted the shawls swagging the table. She knew how to knit, barely -- just enough to seem like she was working on really impressive projects. The truth was that her neighbor Sally would allow Granny to borrow her knitting project for the farmer's market, Granny would fumble her way through a few rows throughout the day, and she'd return it to Sally to frog and fix. 

Nothing about Granny was what it seemed. She was Lee's grandmother, but she was only forty-one, and she used make-up and hair dye to make herself look twenty years older. She'd lied to her neighbors and friends about Lee, saying that he was her great-nephew instead of her grandson. 

Lee had been waiting on her porch, last week, when she’d gotten home from the market. No luggage, just the worn jeans and a t-shirt that fit okay, and shoes a size too small. He'd looked her up and down, noting the make-up, the fake hunch, the forced slowness of her movements. "Pretty good," he'd said, judiciously. "But the wig...." He shook his head.

Granny couldn't help but laugh, involuntarily straightening for a moment. She hadn't seen the kid since he was a newborn but he had his mother's bone structure and cadence. Her daughter had wanted to stay and raise the kid in Smithville but it was too dangerous. So, ten years later, she wouldn't have sent Lee to live with his grandmother unless she was in even worse trouble.

“You make three dollars per pie, right?”

The question pulled Granny out of her reverie. Lee was watching her with his unnervingly adult gaze. She eyed him back, which made him grin. She hated market day, and never felt particularly chatty in public, so she kept her answer to a short, "Yep."

“Last week you had pies left over.”

He knew that because he'd helped her drop the leftover pies off at the church. What he didn't know was that she generally held a dozen or so pies back, just for that purpose. "Mmmhmm..." she murmured noncommittally.

“I’ll make a deal with you,” he said. “If I sell all of your pies, I get to keep whatever the mar-- the customer leaves over the three dollars.”

She halted the rocking chair. She didn't want to sell the pies for over three dollars. She purchased the pies at a buck apiece and the markup was already high enough that she was pushing it. The fact that she was a little old lady, widowed and nearly penniless, as far as the community knew, was the main reason she was able to get away with her exorbitant pricing. 

However, she hated the front-facing side of her little business. The customers with their grubby little kids and the same small talk every week. She ended her markets feeling exhausted and every bit the sixty-plus years she pretended to be. 

"No," she said. She saw his shoulders slump. She started the chair rocking again. "But I'll pay you fifty cents for every pie that you sell."

Lee brightened. "Plus tips?" he asked.

She stopped the chair again, shocked at how quickly he'd pivoted into a new scheme. "Sure," she said. She leaned toward him without breaking eye contact and said quietly, "But if you pick any pockets, I will make you give it all back."

He tried to look offended, but ended up just grinning sheepishly. "Deal."

"And then," she added, knowing that this wasn't enough of a threat, "I'll take you around to every single house on our block and make you confess to everything you took and who you took it from."

His expression darkened at this. He could con his way into forgiveness from any mark he had to return anything to -- assuming she was smart enough to catch him. But strangers hearing about what he did would be much harder to charm. In a town with just over four thousand inhabitants, most of whom were related by blood or marriage, it would be foolish to alienate a single one of them. 

She watched him absorb this information, digest it, and then she saw the darkness lift from his expression. Alright. He'd have to behave himself honorably, for now. But as soon as he'd saved enough to run away, he could make a real score before skipping town. She had no illusions that he planned to stick around any longer than he absolutely had to before running of to rescue his mother from whatever trouble she'd gotten herself into.

He nodded, accepting her challenge with a determined smile. Then her turned toward the entrance, where a few early birds were wandering from the parking lot toward the booths closest to the entrance.

Final Thoughts:

I'm much happier with this. Every sentence doesn't need to be poetry. I tend to start these critiques/revisions feeling overwhelmed and unequipped. I generally want a nap about halfway through. I generally TAKE a nap about halfway through, this was no exception. I actually started working on this yesterday. It doesn't seem like 500 words (or nearly 1000 words that we ended up with) should be that challenging.

And I will say that editing my own writing is harder than editing the work of other people but I get overwhelmed with those too. It's not always immediately apparent what the problem is or how to fix it. I do enjoy it, and I generally end these feeling accomplished and satisfied. I wonder if the overwhelm will ever go away, or if it's just hard-wired into me.

Crossbones (Kingdom of Bones #1) by KarateChop

Original:

I will not die today.

Csilla's unspoken words crowded her mind. She never dwelled on death -- there was no reason to in the life she lived. Death came, it took, and it did not give back. She hadn't given much thought to how she would die, but she assumed it would be bloody and brilliant. Not like this.

As she walked through the crowd with her wrists tied tightly behind her, her fingers ached for the leather hilt of her sword. If she could, she'd fight until every Incendian soldier lay dead or until her last breath wheezed through her bloodied lips.

Around her, the weathered courtyard overflowed with unruly harbor-folk who'd normally be selling wares or watching the soldiers' demonstrations. On this day, however, they'd be witnessing her execution.

The soldiers marched before her, parting the path like a sword through the sea. To onlookers, she was a stain on their garments they couldn't scrub out, a plague they couldn't be rid of. Every time their eyes ran over the scars along her skin, the piercings that lined her ears, her one blind eye, their anger flickered with fear and their shouted insults grew louder.

Csilla ignored them. The distant crash of waves and the briny scent of the sea was enough to calm the frenzied beating of her heart -- for now. It was impossible to truly be calm when a storm was on the horizon.

Time was running out. The noose loomed across the courtyard.

If the Incendian Navy thought to humiliate her in her last moments, they would fail. She held her chin high and stepped with grace. No one would see her falter. No one would see her break. She'd show them only a girl who was proud of her pirate heritage, who preferred to die and be seen than to waste away, hidden in a cell.

"Filthy pirate!" a womans voice yelled, her words slicing above the crowd's jeers like a sharpened blade.

Csilla glanced to her right, her good eye coming to rest on a woman whose worn face snarled at her. The woman wove through the crowd, following as the soldiers pushed Csilla forward. Then the woman stopped, slipped off her shoe, and hurled it, the shoe smacking hard against Csilla's cheek. She ignored the searing pain as well as the taunts and laughter that rose from the crowd. 

Rage burned through Csilla like wildfire. They could rot in Limbo for all she cared. She stopped walking, pulled against the rope binding her to the soldier, and cut her sight to the woman. When their eyes met, the woman shriveled back, averting her gaze to the ground. It wasn't the first time Csilla had received this reaction, which was why she usually wore a scarf to cover her white eye, but today she embraced her difference. Today, she was glad the soldiers wouldn't wear it.

"Sobel Liitena shobenasku," Csilla said, repeating the same words that had cursed her half blind. "Sobel miitesa jaharren eto."

Thoughts:

This is an awesome way to start a story -- the character on her way to the gallows. The prose is lyrical, the action is gripping, and the lore is already woven into the action, rather than infodumped. I read ahead a bit, and Csilla does get rescued by her crew, which is not a surprise, but the way it's done is pretty fun and introduces the other characters. 

There's depth in everything from the dialogue to the lore regarding Csilla's scars and eye. The author has a firm grasp on the story they want to tell, who the characters are, and the entire world, not just the scene we start in. 

I definitely plan to continue reading.

Delta: A Spy Novel by vb123321 on Wattpad

Original:

Shooting ranges had always fascinated me. Call it creepy for a sixteen-year-old to say that, but it was true. Something about holding the cold metal of the gun, combined with the adrenaline as the bullet explodes from the barrel, not to mention the satisfaction received if it hits a target -- it all added up to be one amazing time.

It was also a great way to get things off my mind. This was the sole purpose I had had in mind as I entered a private range, tipping the bored-looking attendant a bright smile to assure him that I wasn't about to commit a homicide. Sliding the gun I had been issued out of my jeans pocket, I checked the magazine and then leaned against the wall, breathing out through my nose. As fun as it was, any time I was in a firing range, I had to mentally prepare myself, because my imagination tended to go overboard when alone in a cold, quiet room, with a gun in hand. 

Something about it freaked me out. I couldn't understand why I was able to shoot men straight through the heart in the heat of adrenaline-boosted field work, but once inside that room, my heartbeat sped up more quickly than if I had been confronted with a KGB agent armed to the teeth.

Once the psychological part was over and I had entered what was generally referred to as the Arctic Zone -- because once inside, all emotion ceased, and it was just you and the gun -- I stepped forward, drawing my gun up in front of me. My finger caressed the smooth metal, tucking itself under the trigger as I fixed my eyes on the target, which stood about seventy-five meters away.

Exhaling again, I closed one eye, sighting down the barrel and taking a little more time than necessary. Giving my imagination a boost, I pictured the target as a man dressed completely in black, holding a knife against the throat of -- I shook my head in slight irritation. No, memories like that weren't going to help. The man switched to holding a gun pointing at me even as I leveled my own at him. Part of me wished I had asked the attendant to give me man-targets instead of the normal bull's-eye ones.

Concentrate.

What would my early trainers have said if they saw me now? Fire first, and then think. I could almost hear them saying it. Training eleven-year-olds to fire a gun couldn't be an easy job, especially since you knew that one day soon they would be in the field, firing at read targets. It made me grateful to know that I was one of the very few agents Delta, the spy agency that employed me, had.

Breathing out for the third time, I re-leveled my gun at the target, emptying my mind of all thoughts. My gaze completely focused, I snapped off a succession of shots, all of which slammed into the target in a split second. 

My Version:

As fun as it was, something about a firing range freaked me out. At sixteen years old, I was able to shoot grown men straight through the heart, but once inside that room, it was like that paper target was every potential enemy every potential assignment gone wrong in every possible way.

I stepped forward, drawing my gun up in front of me. My finger caressed the smooth metal, tucking itself under the trigger as I fixed my eyes on the target, which stood about seventy-five meters away. It helped to imagine one specific enemy.

I closed one eye, sighting down the barrel. I pictured Phoryn Forinman holding a knife to the throat of -- I shook the flashback away. Not helping with the anxiety. Too specific. I tried again, picturing a generic man-in-parka with hood up, shadowing the generic face.

Fire first, then think.

I exhaled, re-leveled my gun at the target, emptying my mind of all thoughts. I snapped off a succession of shots, all of which slammed into the target in a split second. 

Final Thoughts:

There was a lot of repetition in the first 500 words, so I condensed it to less than 200 words. The relevant part of the chapter comes when we have a second character introduced, so we want to get to that as quickly as possible.

There are six scenes in this chapter; Astrid by herself at the gun range, Astrid with Josh at the gun range, Astrid and Josh in the lobby, Astrid and Josh in the lobby with Pierre on the phone, Astrid and Josh in the secretary's room with the secretary, and Astrid and Josh in Young's room with young.

Here is the action of this chapter; Josh finds Astrid at the gun range and tells her that she needs to call Pierre. Astrid calls Pierre who tells Astrid to speak to Young. Astrid and Josh go to speak to Young.

So, we have six scenes for Astrid to find out that she has a new assignment, what the assignment is, and that she'll be working with Pierre and Josh on it. And all of this happens in the last scene. I think we can cut down the number of scenes. Specifically, we can delete the Pierre scene and the secretary scene, unless the secretary becomes relevant later.

I think it's generally really smart to introduce a bunch of characters one at a time, especially at the beginning of a story when we also need to get to know the MC. However, in this case, I think that could still be accomplished if Josh finds Astrid at the gun range and takes her directly to Young's office. Once Astrid and Josh are in Young's office, Pierre could come in, in person. 

Or, Pierre can be mentioned by Young, and Josh can tease Astrid about her crush on Pierre. Or, since Josh already knows everything about the assignment, he can tease Astrid about Pierre on the way to Young's office, so that they aren't behaving like kids in their boss' office.

I really like most of the banter between Astrid and Josh, especially the plot-specific banter, so I'd want to keep most of that. I read ahead through Chapter Two and it seems like the heart of the story is the friendship between Astrid and Josh, which is really nice. You just don't get platonic bestie spies very often, or ever, unless they're the same gender. It's also a more lighthearted tone than other teen spy thrillers, or spy thrillers in general. The characters read as children.

I'm trying so hard not to get into how disturbing it is to romanticize the concept of child soldiers, but I guess I'm just an old fuddy-duddy. I'd be interested to see how this story progresses. Chapter Two is a lot of fun, aside from the fact that absolutely nothing happens in it to move the plot forward.

Glass Eye: Confessions of a Fake Psychic Detective by BenSobieck

Original:

She's obviously an undercover cop. What will it be this time? Theft by swindle? An accounting error? A parking ticket? This should be good.

Zandra sniffs out the disguise before the woman is through the door of Sneak Peek, her hole-in-wall "psychic services" business. It's bricked in between a head shop and a defunct coffee joint in downtown Stephens Point, Wisconsin. Just a chair behind a desk in a single room. A glorified closet stuff with too many eccentricities that catch the sunlight as the woman closes the door.

It doesn't take a psychic for Zandra to see her latest client is failing as an undercover cop. Maybe that's because Zandra isn't a psychic. Rather, she's a proud fraud, loving upon the reputation of that incident at Soma Falls years ago. An incredibly lucky guess? Sure. Psychic? No.

But when the masses spray paint the words "go back to hell witch" on the side of your house and stalk your every move, you'll settle for the psychic label. Better a psychic serving entertainment purposes than anything approaching legitimate in their paranoid eyes. Everyone knows psychics are frauds anyway. It's an unhappy middle ground. An uneasy truce.

Stephens Point didn't know what to make of her back then. Still doesn't. But that doesn't prevent people from coming into Zandra's business. Like cops making sure she knows her place as the village crone. That's probably why this latest one is here.  A reminder to not get too uppity about the reputation from Soma Falls. But don't walk away from it, either.  What happened with Zandra and Soma Falls put Stevens Point on the map. The tourism alone is worth millions.

The creases around Zandra's tired eyes life into a greeting. Smize as the kids would say. Not that she's been anywhere near hip for decades, made obvious by the oversized purple gown draped over her shoulders. It's acned with gaudy rhinestones straight off a cheap stripper's ass cheek. It's all for show, just like every other trinket of sparkly nonsense in Sneak Peek. And all for sale, of course. That's the proud in proud fraud. Not like anyone in town would give Zandra a real job anyway. But they'd certainly remind her she should.

The woman takes a seat across the desk from Zandra. As she does with all her clients, the "psychic" performs a mental checklist before saying anything. Zandra's got it down to three seconds. that's all she needs for her act.

Short, blonde hair pulled back tight into a small ponytail. 

Fingernails trimmed to a few millimeters. 

Baggy flannel shirt to cover the concealed pistol in a holster secured inside the waistband of her jeans. Right hand seated on her thigh at the ready to draw. Legs planted firmly on the floor instead of crossed or casual.

These aren't traits exclusive to cops. But playing the psychic, Zandra knows it's an odds game.

My Version:

Zandra's liver-spotted hands are stringing beads for a suncatcher, when the jingling of ceramic bells alerts her to a visitor. She looks up. It's an undercover cop. Another one. 

Short, blonde hair pulled back tight into a small ponytail. Fingernails trimmed to a few millimeters. Baggy flannel shirt to cover the concealed pistol in a holster. Blue eyes that case the entire room, checking corners and blind spots. Not that there's much to check. 

Sneak Peek is a psychic shop bricked in between a head shop and a defunct coffee joint in downtown Stephens Point, Wisconsin. Just a battered wood round table flanked by two comfy mismatched armchairs, surrounded by colorful wind chimes, dreamcatchers, pillows, blankets, and caftans like the one Zandra wore -- her signature bedazzled purple. Baubles sparkle in the sunlight as the cop closes the door, shooting prisms around the room.

The cop navigates the few steps to the seat across from Zandra and sits down. Right hand seated on her thigh. Legs planted firmly on the floor. No doubt uncomfortable to have her back to the door.

Final Thoughts: 

I'm assuming that Zandra is supposed to be a sympathetic character, so I took out the "cheap stripper" part of the line describing her outfit. I'm also going to try not to hold it against the author, either. Attitudes toward sex work are changing slowly. Anyway...

I was intrigued by the premise of a fake psychic solving crimes. Not the most original premise, but fun, and I liked that the MC was female. There is a lot of set-up in the first 500 words. The scene gets a lot more interesting once the characters start talking, so my main object was to edit out any unnecessary information and the extensive amount of mental bragging Zandra does regarding being a fake psychic.

One thing that throws me off is that this is supposed to be a really small town, so I'm not sure how undercover a cop could be, unless she's new to town. Especially with Zandra already having been harassed by cops pretty frequently, I would think she'd be pretty familiar with the local cops.

Also, I never heard that people with blue eyes are hard-drinking bisexuals. What a weird and unexpected stereotype (this was after the first 500 words).

For my version, I condensed the descriptions and gave Zandra something to do before the customer walks in. Sneak Peek seems to be as much of a tchotchke shop as a psychic, so I liked the idea of her making her own knic-knacks. I also made the setting slightly less generic than "eccentricities". I also used a couple of descriptions that come after the first 500 words.

I have a loose formula for new scenes. Describe the scene, then describe the characters, then describe the action. You see this in movies where during the opening credits, we're panning out over a city, then we focus in on a building, and then in the building is the main character. In this case, I described the characters first because the cop comes in and immediately looks around, so it's a perfect excuse to describe the setting without having the two characters floating around in space for too long.

I left out the stuff about Soma Falls because it's so vague when it's brought up that it might as well wait for a few paragraphs later when the cop brings it up. I think that's a good time for Zandra to reflect on what happened there in slightly more detail. 

Chapter Two is MUCH better. I would definitely keep reading. The author has an interesting protagonist and a specific story to tell. I really like that she's an older woman and also agrees to help find a missing girl in order to get revenge on the town that has treated her so poorly. 

And Then There Was Victor by isabelle_olmo on Wattpad

 Original:

Mami had stuffed all our baby photos along with her wedding album inside of the washing machine which is why they were saved. Our house was now a carcass of its former self, skin and bones and the meat, our things, all missing. I didn't know where we belonged, but we couldn't stay here, here was all gone, and by some miracle, we remained.

The newspapers called Miami a "Wasteland" and that's what it was like. God had reached down to earth and with his great big hand he had crumbled the houses into toothpicks then laid them back down for their owners to find. Mami said gather what I could, whatever could be saved. All that I was, all that I had, fit in a box. A brown wet box.

Kissimmee was somehow where we ended up because a long-time friend offered us a room to stay in, until we got our things together. I remember thinking how small it was, small streets, small people, slow and steady.

This town was sterile and orderly, people outside of the norm were frowned upon and I was a small brown girl with frizzy hair that had one pair of jeans and had to share a bed with her little brother.

"Can you escort Beckett -- is that your name?"

The school counselor dressed funny, everyone in Kissimmee did, much different from Puerto Rico or Miami.

"Becka. Becka Montana."

I realized suddenly that my accent was thick. Very thick. I could tell by the pursing of her lips. I wasn't welcomed here, this was not where I belonged, where we belonged. I wanted to explain to her that this was not my choice but I didn't have the words.

"Derek, can you escort Ms. Montana to Mr. White's English class? She's new", the woman said and in came a boy with blond hair that fell on his face even as he pushed it back.

I didn't dare look at him, I didn't dare look at most boys. I didn't know what to say and I didn't want them to see that all I owned was in a wet cardboard box under a guest bed. He signaled with his chin for me to follow.

Mr. White was smiling and dressed so well and sharp that I remember thinking that he looked like a businessman.

"Becka?"

"Yes, sir. Becka Montana."

The class, which had turned to stare openly at me, snickered and I didn't understand why it was funny but I thought that perhaps they already knew that Miami was gone, destroyed and I was the debris that had wandered in.

"It's a pleasure to meet you Becka, welcome to 7th Grade Engish."

His eyes were brown and warm and I smiled a little at him.

"Thank you."

"Where are you from, Becka?"

"Miami." I chanced a look at the room. The faces were foreign and strange, and I missed my friends in Miami but I didn't know where they had ended up, where the winds had blown them.

My Version:

The newspapers called Miami "a wasteland" and that's what it was. God had reached down to Earth with His great big hand, crumbled the houses into toothpicks, then laid them back down. All that I was, all that I had, fit in a box. A brown, wet box.

A family friend offered us a room in Kissimmee. Compared to Miami, the town was small, slow, and colorless. Even the school counselor was beige. I could tell by the pursing of her lips that my accent was too thick. My skin too brown. My hair too frizzy. I wanted to explain to her that sharing a twin bed in a strange house in a strange city at a strange school was not how I wanted to spend seventh grade, but I didn't have the words.

As quickly as she could, she passed me onto her student aid, Derek. He ran his hand through floppy blonde hair that re-settled immediately against his cheekbones, and led me down the beige halls to the beige classroom. I didn't dare look at him, I didn't dare look at most boys.

As we walked in, the entire class, seemed to perk up just to snicker at me. I was debris that Hurricane Andrew had blown in, and wished I could blow right out again. 

Mr. White, my English teacher, had warm brown eyes and a gentle smile. He wore a full gray suit with a vest and tie, like a businessman, and spoke like one of them, his accent polished away to nothing.

"It's a pleasure to meet you, Becka. Where are you from?"

"Miami." I chanced a look at the room. The faces weren't all hostile, but they were all strange. I wondered if the winds had blown my friends to equally unfriendly places. I hoped not.

Final Thoughts:

I like the voice of the MC in the original, but I thought that it was a diluted by a lot of extra words. In my version, I tried to capture the most vivid descriptions and feelings of the original but cut down on unnecessary dialogue and description. For instance, the school counselor calling her "Beckett" instead of "Becka" is weird. "Becka" is a pretty common name for a girl, and the counselor would have Becka's file right in front of her. 

Also, Mr. White welcoming her to "seventh grade English" is awkward. I can't imagine any teacher saying that. That little detail is obviously for the reader, so I moved it up to her reaction to the counselor.

I read ahead a few chapters, and I like the MC's voice more and more. This is a slow burn romance, but the blurb describes it as enemies-to-friends-to-lovers, which is inaccurate because they are never really enemies, they are just slightly antagonistic toward each other. The writing feels like we're rushing to get to college where they'll fall in love, but I kind of wish the author would slow down and give the "enemies" and "friends" parts of the stories equal weight. That IS what sets this story apart from a regular romance, after all.

Also, it feels odd to introduce her strong friend group only to have them all disappear before she even gets to college. It feels like a waste to invest in them, which kind of explains why the author rushed through those parts. I think this story arc combined with the strength of the writing could actually be a trilogy, one for each stage of the relationship. Then these characters and stories could be fleshed out more. I feel like they deserve more than a few chapters.

That said, based on the few chapters I've read (all of them a lot better than the first one), I plan to continue reading. If the author was able to sketch out full and interesting characters in the first few chapters, I have high hopes for the rest of the book, where, I'm assuming, she'll take her time. 

The Famoux by famouxx on Wattpad

Original:

When I was younger and more susceptible to liars, my mother let me in on a little secret that took me years to outgrow. If I really wanted something, she told me, all I had to do was think about it, and hope for it, and my requests would always be heard.

"Thoughts are powerful," she said. "Good or bad, they have their way of coming true."

Poor advice to give a child, much less one as vulnerable as I was. I took her wisdom as fact and accepted no other opinions. As children do, I thought only of ways to make my singular life easier. I thought about acing my tests instead of studying for them.  thought about making good and lasting friends instead of being one in kind. I thought about standing up to Westin van Horne one day instead of ever becoming brave enough to do actually do it.

But thoughts without action, as I'd later learn, are meaningless. My grades, my loneliness, and my torment persisted, because I didn't do a thing to change them. Yet, as I walked home, I kept my mother's promise in mind. I thought new thoughts of a better life, sure that these would be the ones to come true. And when I came home crying, she was there to wipe the tears from my eyes and feed me more honey-tasting lies. She'd tell me how my differences weren't flaws, and that I wasn't worth any less than Westin or any of the other kids. She'd tell me I was beautiful, unique was good, and a whole menagerie of other little myths long since proven untrue. I'm sure even then I knew they were lies, but oh, were they wonderful lies to live. I grew to depend on them -- on knowing that no matter how bad the day was, my mother would always be there to comfort me with tall tales of a better future.

Which turned out to be yet another lie.

The morning in question wasn't inherently different than any before it. She insisted I wear her jacket to school, a blue corduroy thing lined with fleece, since mine was getting small in the arms. She told me as always to think positive thoughts that day while she fastened the buttons. I was fourteen at the time, so the sentiment was met with rolling eyes, a swat at her hands, and an assertion I could fasten a coat just fine on my own, thank you. At school, Westin and his group gave me their worst, and I fought tears the whole way home. It was the usual routine. It was expected. So when I creaked open the door and sulked inside with my usual, miserable flair, the last thing I expected was to find the house empty.

Sure, the furniture was still in place. The cabinets were still stocked. But the smell of peonies in her perfume was faint, as if she'd been out of the house all day. I didn't think much of it until I went to her closet to return the jacket and discovered her things were gone. 

A thought tried to enter my head at that moment, but I wouldn't let it. Thoughts had power, after all, and this was one I couldn't bear to let come true. But as I checked her empty drawers and noted the missing duffle bags in the hall closet, I realized it already had.

My mother was gone. She had run away.

My Version:

When I was young and susceptible to lies, my mother let me in on a little secret. If I really wanted something, all I had to do was think about it, and hope for it, and my wishes would be heard. Thoughts, good and bad, were powerful.

But my grades, my loneliness, and my torment persisted. And when I'd come home crying every day, she was there to wipe the tears from my eyes and feed me more honeyed fiction. My differences weren't flaws. I wasn't worth any less than my bullies. I was beautiful, unique, good. Even then I knew they were lies, but oh, did I grow to depend on them.

One day, she insisted I wear her jacket to school; a blue corduroy thing lined with fleece, since mine was getting small in the arms. "Think positive thoughts," she said, fastening the buttons, her peony perfume wafting around me.

I was fourteen, so the sentiment was met with rolling eyes, a swat at her hands, and an assertion I could fasten a coat just fine on my own, thank you. As usual, the day was terrible, and I cried the whole way home. But when I pushed the squeaky door open and skulked inside, I found the house empty.

The furniture was still there. The cabinets were still stocked. But the smell of peonies was faint, as if she'd been out of the house all day. I stomped up the creaky stairs -- creak, stomp, sniff, creak, stomp, sniff. I stomped, sniffed, stomped to the open door of my parents' room. Stomped and sniffed my way to their closet to return her jacket. 

My father's clothes hung there, brown and beige and smelling of starch and dust. My mother's flowy floral dresses were not hanging next to them. Her neat, dainty shoes were not next to his big, worn ones on the bottom of the closet. 

A thought tried to enter my head, but I wouldn't let it. Thoughts had power, after all, and this was one I couldn't bear to let come true. 

But her perfume was not on her dresser, no underwear in her drawers. Her small, pink suitcase was not in the hallway closet.  

My mother was gone. She had run away.

Final Thoughts:

There were a lot of repeated thoughts without any additional details in the original so I condensed a lot of that, while trying to keep the melancholic vibe. In the original, her mother's stuff being gone is one sentence. I wanted to slow down a bit, zoom into that moment. It's only four extra sentences, but I think they add a bit more weight to that moment.

The premise of the story is that it's a dystopian future in which the MC is invited to be part of a reality show that she loves. But the experience isn't as glamorous as she's expecting, and "being popular really is a matter of life and death". A fun concept, but the execution is not as dynamic as the premise.

Unfortunately, Chapter 1 is just a giant infodump, and Chapter 2 is long and uneventful. I'm sure there's a good story in there somewhere, but it's swimming in a lot of uninteresting dialogue and exposition. The scenes don't have a direction or a purpose. The MC's siblings are insufferable, but not in an interesting way, and there are indications that the MC is "different" but I wasn't interested enough to wade through all of the exposition to figure out how.

The good news is that writing like this is easier to edit than underwritten stories. The bulk of the work is to remove all of the information that isn't immediately necessary in order to move the scene forward. Conflict/tension only takes a few details here and there, and same with characterization. I don't have any current desire to continue with the story, but I'd give the author another shot in a couple of years.

Between the Crystals by CrystalScherer on Wattpad

Original:

I warily eased through the undergrowth, finally spotting the apple tree I'd come to check on. My shoulders slumped when I saw every apple was gone. Another village must have picked them even though they were only half ripe. 

I examined the forest around me, hoping to find something worthwhile to take back or report. Apart from a handful of dandelions springing back up, there was nothing edible. My trip had come to naught. With a sigh, I turned to go back.

The birds above stopped singing. Even as I froze, faint rustling in the shrubs sent my heart racing. I furtively glanced over my shoulder, catching a glimpse of blue reptile-like scales stalking through the shrubs about a hundred paces away.

A Saursune. There was no way it didn't know I was here. Not at that range, not with its sense of smell. Abandoning any attempt at stealth, I bolted back the way I'd come.

My hand-stitched leather shoes thudded against the forest leaf litter as I careened full-tilt down the trail. A faint hiss and heavier footsteps followed. I didn't dare look back.

I rounded a bend, skidding on the loose forest debris as I desperately raced back to the crystal formation. A rumbling growl came from the side -- the Saursune was circling around to cut me off -- toying with me like a cat with a mouse. Preparing to pounce, or perhaps just chasing me off to send a warning. There was no way to know unless I escaped alive.

Fear goaded me to even greater speeds. I didn't reach for the knife on my belt -- I didn't dare. Unarmed, it might be content with chasing me off. Brandishing a weapon in any form was certain death. Against a Saursune, my small flint knife was useless. I'd be better off attacking a grizzly.

Through a gap in the bushes, I spotted a lithe form far too my right. On four feet, the dark blue reptile's back was almost chest-high on me. The longer horns marked it as a male. His bared teeth glinted in the sunlight as he glared at me. This Saursune wasn't wearing armor or a belt. No phasers or other weapons -- not that he needed them when his claws were as long as my small knife. 

With a hiss, the adult male began bounding through the bushes toward me, covering the distance between us far too quickly. My heart hammered in my chest as my eyes locked onto the waist-high bluish-green crystal spires growing out of the soil. I was almost there!

With a soft cry, I dropped to my knees and skidded across the grass as I clapped my hands onto one of the spires, desperately visualizing a similar crystal in the desert while whispering the location name.

It felt like sunlight was shimmering through my veins, and my vision blurred like I was caught in a heat haze. Within a couple of seconds, the forest greens turned to desert tans, then cleared. The Saursune was gone, left behind in the forest.

Thoughts:

When I first heard the writing advice to start with action, I always assumed it had to be like, a gunfight or a car chase or something. In this case, it's a scary alien chasing a girl, but that doesn't start until the third paragraph. The first paragraph introduces conflict immediately. She's looking for food, another village has taken it. There's no suggestion that the other village is at war with our MC's village, but again, conflict doesn't have to be violent in order to be devastating.

The second paragraph indicates that she's not just responsible for feeding herself but that she's on a larger mission for her own village. The tension within the character ratchets up a notch. By the third paragraph, when the birds stop singing and she spots the Saursune, we've escalated a few more notches. Now the MC is in immediate danger.

And think about this: the MC is probably one of a few people who can go around scavenging, right? There are elderly, injured, infirm, and children who are depending on her. So, if she dies, the affect on the village is higher than if she's only looking for food for herself.  Also, the fact that the fruit the other village took wasn't even ripe suggests desperation that comes from a food shortage, rather than just regular harvesting. Three paragraphs in, and we have incredibly high stakes, but there's been no dialogue and no bloodshed. And THEN, we have a life-or-death chase, we have magical crystals and alien lizards. I'm so in.

Anyway, I just wanted to showcase this as a First 500 that is already excellent. I could nitpick here and there, but honestly, this is pretty much perfect. Also, I've read ahead a couple of chapters, and the writing quality is consistent, and the story only gets more interesting. I'll keep reading, for sure. Highly recommend, based on what I've read.